Driftwood Point (9 page)

“I learned all my carpentry skills from Uncle Cliff. If he couldn't build it, it couldn't be built. He taught me everything I know. Boats, houses, whatever.”

“So you, what, build boats, then in your spare time you build back porches and kitchens and bathrooms? Or is it the other way around?”

Alec smiled. “I spend my spare time with
Annie
. She keeps me busy when I'm not otherwise engaged. Eventually, I'd like to build boats full time, like my uncle did. I have a real fondness for the classic Chesapeake working boats.”

“That skipjack of Uncle Eb's—”

“Was built by my great-uncle. I found the plans for her and some photos taken of her when she was just a work in progress. They're not great—the lighting in the shop wasn't so good back then, and since they built her over a winter, the place was closed up most of the time, so the pictures are pretty dark. But you can see her lines, her bones . . .” He laughed self-consciously. “Yeah, I know, she's just a boat.”

“But she's special, I get that. I never really knew Eben—he always seemed to keep to himself. Actually, I never really knew anyone from that generation on either side of my family. My grandmothers both died when I was a baby, so I guess that's why I always felt an attachment to the boat. It was a tangible link to . . .” She paused. “I don't know why I just said all that.”

“I get it. The boat is part of your family.”

“She was part of the landscape around the store. I can't remember a time when she wasn't there. I could look out my window at night and she would always be there.”
Like a sentinel
, she could have added, watching over her and Ruby after her father died and her mother moved to Arizona and Owen was away at college. “Anyway, it's interesting that Gigi was willing to part with her after holding on to her for so long.”

“I think she was happy to know the boat was going to a good home. Ruby knows how much I wanted her, that I'll do right by her. She was weathered pretty badly, but she's coming along. She will be as good as new—better than new—once I'm done.”

“What will you do with her once you're finished? You going to give up your carpentry business to dredge for oysters?”

“I do a little oyster farming with a couple of other guys, but no. I don't plan to work her that way. They have skipjack races here and there during the summer months. I'll be signing up for a few of those once she's seaworthy.”

“I didn't know there were enough skipjacks left to race.”

“There are a number of them still around. There's a big race down at Deal Island in September.”

“I hope you get her back out there, then. And I hope you win.”

“Thanks. We'll give it our best.” Alec took a step away from the car. “So can I give you a ride back to the store?”

“Thanks, but I think I'd like to hang around here for a while. I thought I'd check up on Ruby's old house.”

“It's still standing.” He pointed to the brick house—little more than a cottage—that was fifty feet or so from where they stood. “Needs some work, hard to tell how much. But considering the age and the fact that it's been uninhabited for . . . how many years, do you think?”

Lis shook her head. “No idea. I'll have to ask Gigi when she moved from here to the store.”

He checked his watch, then said, “Well, be careful if you walk out on the pier. There's a lot of rotted wood. There are a couple of whole sections that need to be replaced.”

“I'll tell Gigi. She should think about posting ‘No Trespassing' signs, and she should probably get the pier fixed. It's an attraction for the kids on the island, I would guess. Assuming there are still little kids on the island.”

He started to walk toward his car, and without thinking, Lis fell in step with him.

“Not too many little ones around here these days,” he told her. “Not that I've seen, anyway.”

“Oh? You spend a lot of time out here?” They'd
almost reached the Jeep, and she held back a few steps as he walked to it.

“I spent a lot of time at Ruby's.” He opened the car door, slid behind the wheel, then slammed the door. “And in case you hadn't noticed, there are a lot of places on the island in need of repair.”

“Lucky for you, then, right? Lots of work to keep you busy when you're not—” She stopped. She wasn't sure what he did in his spare time.

“When I'm not what? Conning old ladies out of their valuable property?”

“No, no,” she protested. “I wasn't going to say that. Really.”

“I'll bet you were thinking it. Same thing.” He put the Jeep in reverse. “See you at the reception, if not sooner.”

“Wait, Alec, I . . .” She paused. “What reception?”

“The reception at the gallery before your showing. I hear it's going to be a Big Event.” He turned the car around and passed her, not bothering to wave.

Well, damn. Lis watched the Jeep disappear around the bend in the road and stood for a minute wondering what had just happened. She hadn't been about to insult him. She hadn't even been thinking it, but their earlier encounter that morning must have weighed heavily on his mind for him to have been so defensive.

It occurred to her that she never did find out why he'd been there.

She walked past the old house and out onto the pier, stepping over those spots where the wood had rotted, as Alec had warned. It really did need repair.
She went all the way to the end, then sat cautiously, her feet not quite reaching the water. She scooched a little closer to the edge so that her toes were visible beneath the surface. There had been a thousand summer days like this one when she'd sat right here, looking out at the bay and wondering what was on the other side. She'd watch the boats come back in late in the afternoon, hoping that her father had had a good day with his traps. The later he pulled into the cove, the more doubtful it was that he'd found his traps filled. Some days she'd bring a sketch pad and draw what she saw on the bay—the boats with their sails filled with breeze, the gulls that followed the fishing boats, picking at the chum. Ospreys that dove headfirst into the water to do a little fishing of their own. That time in her life had its own flavor, colored by sunlight on the water and the shadows of the scrub pines.

On her ninth birthday, Ruby had given her the first real art supplies she'd ever owned. There'd been a lidded basket filled with pads to sketch on and pads upon which to paint. There'd been charcoals and watercolors and tubes of oil paints, a variety of brushes and several small canvases. Years later, Lis realized it had been Ruby's way of encouraging her to find her medium. It had been the single greatest gift she'd ever received, and she'd guarded her treasures as if they'd been gold. She kept her sketches and her early attempts at painting to herself. She knew she had a lot to learn, but she also knew she'd never want to do anything but paint.

Now, as an adult looking back on that time, Lis
could see that Ruby's choice of gift was her way of saying that she recognized who Lis was. No one, Lis realized, saw her as clearly as her great-grandmother, and yet she'd never done one thing to adequately thank her.

Well, that was going to change. Lis resolved to stick around for as long as it took to make sure Ruby's stories were preserved. She'd drive back to her apartment in New Jersey and gather her work supplies and bring them back. There was no reason why she couldn't work here as well as there. Ruby wasn't getting any younger, and it would be a crime if she passed on and took everything she knew with her.

Resolved, Lis stood. Her feet were too wet to put into her sandals, so she walked barefoot back along the pier, careful to avoid the loose or missing boards.

As she stepped off the pier, she heard a bang. One of the shutters on Ruby's old place had come loose and was flapping against the wall every time even a light breeze blew. She went over to investigate and found that the hook that once held it in place was missing. She tried the front door but found it locked. She walked around to the back of the building and checked under every rock but there was no hidden key. She peered through the glass on the top half of the back door, using first her hand, then the front of her ice cream–splotched shirt to wipe away decades of dross. She could barely see inside, but she knew that there was a large room that had served as a living room and a dining room, with a square kitchen off to the left side in the back. There were two
bedrooms and a small bath off a short hall to the left. The second floor had a loft where Ruby and Harold's four daughters—including her own grandmother, Sarah—had slept, their metal beds lined up in a tight row. The two boys had slept in the second bedroom on the first floor. Lis had heard stories over the years, but they'd never seemed important, until now. Now she wanted to know every one of them—the boys who'd gone off to war and the girls who'd stayed home and married and populated the island, until life on the island was no longer enough to hold them. She'd never thought about the ones who, like Lis herself, had left. She knew nothing about them other than the fact that they'd started their lives in this little cottage by the bay.

Lis hurried back to the store, wanting to jot down all her thoughts before they left her. She'd make a list of all the questions she wanted to ask about all the people who'd come before her, and she'd record Ruby's responses in her own voice. Maybe she'd take notes, write down as much as she could. In her mind's eye she saw a book, the cover of which bore the likeness of the cottage she'd just left. A likeness she'd paint herself, maybe right there in the cottage.

The thought came on in a flash of clarity: the cottage would make the ideal studio. The lighting was perfect and the views were inspiring. Already her hands were itching to hold her brushes, the colors in her mind eager to capture the exact hues of the water and the sky. Images began to take shape, and she
knew that her days of painting cityscapes had come to an end.

She couldn't wait to get back to the store and ask Ruby for the key. She'd beg if necessary, but having rediscovered the cottage, she knew in her heart it had been biding its time, waiting for her.

Chapter Five

B
e a lot of work to fix that place up.” Ruby's expression was thoughtful after listening to Lis's idea about using the old cottage as an art studio. “I don't know you want to put all that into it.”

“I think it would make the perfect studio, Ruby, and I can't think of anything better to do with the money I made from my paintings. I did pretty well this past year, you know, so I have a nice nest egg tucked away. If you don't have other plans for the cottage, I'd like to use it, if I could.”

“Tell me what you be thinking.”

“I thought maybe I'd close up the apartment in New Jersey for a while, see how things go here, if it's okay with you. I think I could use a change of scenery. I'd love to paint out on the pier, maybe some places around the island.” Lis smiled. “And I'd like to spend more time talking to you, maybe even get you to tell some of your stories about the island, about our family. Being out at your old house today, I realized I know so little about Gramma Sarah and your
other children. It's as if that entire generation is a big blank to me. I'd like to know about them.”

Ruby looked as if someone had just walked in and told her that a dozen clowns were parachuting onto the roof of the store.

“I must be light-headed,” Ruby said. “Think maybe I should sit a spell. Sure enough sounded like you said you'd be staying here a time, doing some painting out on the point, take some time to know your kinfolks. Time to set out to see Dr. Booth. Get my ears checked out. Maybe I got the vertigo.”

Lis laughed. “There's nothing wrong with your hearing, Gigi. You heard perfectly well. Is it that hard to believe?”

“You been gone mostly since you were eighteen.”

“I've been back,” Lis protested, even as she knew Ruby was right. Her visits were few, far between, brief, and always at Lis's convenience.

“Not casting blame, just saying what is.” She appeared thoughtful for a moment. “What you suppose
he
will say to that?”

“He?” Lis frowned.

“That man that lives in your apartment. The one who only showed up here one time and acted like he couldn't wait to leave.”

“You mean Ted.”

“Any other man be living in your apartment?”

“Actually, there are no men living in my apart­ment.” Lis held up her left hand and wiggled her ring finger, knowing full well that Ruby would have noticed the absence of the diamond that had decorated that finger for the past year. “I gave the ring back.”

Ruby nodded as if she'd been expecting the news.

But the last person Lis wanted to think about was Ted, so before Ruby could pump her for details, Lis asked, “Is it okay if I stay? Would it be all right if I fixed up the old place?”

“This island be your birthright, course you can stay. That old house been sitting there for more years than I can count back. Didn't think it would ever see life again.” Ruby walked slowly to the counter, where she made herself a cup of tea.

When she returned to the table, she told Lis, “My Harold and me, we loved that old place. Wasn't no place on the island we loved as much. When my daddy passed, I helped my mama to keep the store going. When she passed, it fell to me. Harold and I moved here, wasn't no one else to do. People need their store on the island. We were happy there and happy here as well, but I always felt like I left something behind back there on the point. That old place be filled with memories. Maybe time for it to have a few more. New.” She sipped her tea.

“Do you still have the key? Maybe I could walk through and see what's what.” Lis studied Ruby's expression, one of sorrow at the passing of her days with the man she'd loved and made a family with, ran a business with, and one day buried in the yard behind the store. Lis wondered if it ever would be possible to do justice to that face.

“Key's on a chain near the back door here. Now, you tell Alec to take a look at the place, see if it can be saved. Been left alone so long, maybe has to come down. Alec will know.”

“I think I'd like to check it out myself.”

“Suit yourself,” Ruby said. “But I don't see you poking in the walls. Never know what you'll be finding, once you do. And someone's going to have to be climbing up on that roof. That going to be you or Alec?”

“Alec climbed on your roof?”

Ruby nodded. “More'n once. Somebody had to. Weren't going to be me.”

“Isn't there anyone else who does home repairs and carpentry around here?”

“Cameron O'Connor be a good man, good worker, right smart boy he is. But I hear he's turning people away, he's so busy.” Ruby eyed her suspiciously. “You having a problem with Alec?”

“Not really. Of course, I'll call him if that's who you like.”

“Did right by me,” Ruby said simply.

“Gigi, did he really just show up and start taking down that old back porch without asking you about it?”

“He did that.” Ruby grinned, the lines on her face folding into deep creases. “Shows what a good boy he be, what good upbringing he had. Saw a problem and just took it on himself to fix it.”

“And it didn't bother you that he didn't ask?”

“What fool would want his house to fall down? That porch roof was gonna go in the next big wind, sure enough. I kept meaning to ask someone to look at it, but it kept slipping my mind.”

Lis doubted that anything ever slipped Ruby's mind, but she let that pass.

“Well, what if you couldn't have paid for the work?”

“I guess we would have worked something out, by and by.”

“You really think a stranger would have—”

“Who said something about a stranger?” Ruby interrupted. “How'd that thought get inside your head?”

“Isn't he?” It hadn't occurred to Lis that Ruby might have known him. When would she have met Alec? “How would you have known him?”

“Known Alec since he be a wee one. Known his kin all my life.”

“You have?”

Ruby's white head nodded. “He left town for a time, been gone off and on since old Cliff passed, but that been some time ago. He been back here, oh, maybe a year, maybe a time more. Had some business of his own up in Havre de Grace, brought it here.”

“Still, if you knew that the porch needed work, and you knew that you needed to move to the first floor, why didn't you ask Owen or me to take care of it for you?”

“You and your brother be off doing your own things, having your own lives. Alec be here and he didn't wait to be asked. He said,
‘Miz Ruby, you need to be mindful of those steps, going up and down every day.'
He'd heard about my fall in the bathroom. I suspect everyone both sides of the bridge heard tell of that, Hedy being Essie's sister and they both being such gossips.”

“So you just said, okay, build away?”

“No. He asked if he could see the back space, all the old storage behind the store. So I let him go on in back there and he poked around a time and came out when he was done poking. Went out to his car and came back in with paper and asked me for a pencil. Stood right there at the counter and drew some pictures. When he be done, he said,
‘Miz Ruby, I think this would work.'
Showed me what he drew. All what you saw back there now.” Ruby pointed to the back wall of the store. “Said if I liked it, he'd do it for me.”

“Did you get another estimate to see if his price was fair?”

“Didn't feel inclined to do that. Price felt right. Charged me only what it cost him. Paid for the plumber and the electrician from his pocket.”

“He did?” Lis couldn't hide her surprise. What contactor did things like that? Even she had to admit if Alec had been out to take advantage of Ruby, he hadn't done a very good job of it.

“Sure enough he did, bless his heart.”

“I'm still surprised you let him take the boat. I'm pretty sure he could have found another skipjack to restore. It isn't as if that was the only one around up on blocks.”

“That be what he wanted for his time. Wasn't just any skipjack he wanted. His folk built that boat back in the day. Guess he felt a kinship with it. Seems to me the barter be fair. We both be pleased with our part.”

“He did tell me that. That his uncle . . .” Lis tried to remember the name.

“Clifford. Cliff Ellison. Ellisons be in St. Dennis since right before the Civil War. Owned the only
newspaper in town. Still do. Cliff should have been the one to take it over from his daddy, but he had no mind for it. Fell to his sister, Grace. She still owns it, still runs it. Does a fine job, too.”

“Grace . . . do you mean Grace Sinclair?”

Ruby nodded. “Alec be Gracie's nephew. His mother—Gracie and Cliff's sister Carole—and his father died in a car wreck. Hit by one of those big trucks that haul for one of them big companies, I forget which one. Carole and Allen be fine people. Doted on that boy. Them dying so sudden left the boy alone, but Clifford, he went to the courts and said he'd raise the boy. Courts said fine, Cliff brought Alec to St. Dennis. The company that owned the truck paid a lot of money, 'cause of the accident taking his parents, but Cliff put it all in some accounts for when Alec turned twenty-five. Cliff had the money for his college all set up separate, which was good, since Cliff passed before Alec was even twenty, best I recall. Grace would know the details, Cliff being her brother and all.”

“I think maybe I did hear something about that when we were in school. I don't know that I knew all the details, but I'm pretty sure I'd heard about the accident. It must have happened before I started going to school in St. Dennis, because Alec was already there before me.”
Poor Alec
, she thought.
What a horrible thing for a young child to endure.
She couldn't imagine what it would be like to lose both parents at the same time. She'd been in her teens when her father died, and while that had been a sad time, she still had her mother.

“Everyone in town knew. It was a terrible tragedy. Gracie was torn up about losing her sister, but Cliff, he never was the same after.”

“I forgot to tell you I saw Grace earlier when I was out. She said to let you know she'd have someone come for you Tuesday or Wednesday.”

“I suspect you could drive me,” Ruby said.

“Drive you where?”

“Over to the inn. Grace and I be friends for a time. Known her since she be a girl. She used to come, spend a few hours with me. Share lunch. There be things we talk about. Every week for years till she be hurt last year and stayed pretty much at the inn. Saw to it that every week, someone would come for me, we'd have lunch and visit, someone would bring me back.”

Lis would love to know what things Ruby and Grace Sinclair talked about, but she let it go, asking instead, “Who watched the store for you?”

“Put a sign up. Gone fishing. Be back at two.” Ruby's eyes danced with mirth.

Lis laughed. “So you've been going into St. Dennis every week to have lunch with Grace at the inn?”

“Like clockwork. The cook over there knows what to do with rockfish. Does nice with blue claws, too.”

“Oh boy, my dad would have loved that,” Lis muttered. “You getting chummy with the townies.”

“Lisbeth, your daddy was wrongheaded about a lot of things. St. Dennis just be one of them. Your mama be another.” She shook her head. “Everyone says I should never have let my girl marry that man,
but then I say, can't change what is. If Kathleen had married someone else, there'd be no Lisbeth. No Owen. Change one thing, change all. Kathleen made her choices all her life. Not all of them be good. But you and your brother . . . well, sometimes right comes from wrong. You and Owen are right. Best thing your mother ever did, had you two.” She looked Lis in the eye and said, “The best thing your daddy ever did was die young.”

Not for the first time that day, Lis's mouth dropped open.

“Shocked you, I see. But truth is truth. Jack Parker gave nothing good to this world but his children. He can rest in peace knowing he did that much. Now, you can get that look off your face. I never wished the man harm, but I never shed a tear for him, either.”

“I did. I cried for him when he died,” Lis said softly.

“I know you did. And that be right. He was your daddy and no matter what, you should have cared when he passed.”

“I didn't cry 'cause he died, Gigi. I cried because of the way he lived. He could have been so much more than he was.”

“True words, those. He wasted time he should have spent well. But he was content with the way he was and the way he lived. Could have been different, could have been better, but he lived his life looking over his shoulder, looking back at things that had nothing to do with him.”

“It was hard trying to convince him that the War of 1812 had been over a long time.”

“Always he be talking about the big house over on Hudson Street that should have been his. Always saying how life would be different, better, if that place had passed to him. Blaming others for what he was 'stead of looking inside himself.” Ruby shook her head. “He couldn't see that it was him causing his own grief.”